Star Wars has brought us many big moments in pop culture over the years. With the exception of one very bad ass scene from The Last Jedi, the sequel trilogy takes its fair share of sh-t from fans. Some of the criticism of The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi is valid, but a lot of it is the result of misogynistic fanboys who didn’t like seeing a female lead and were never going to be satisfied anyway. One of the most mocked moments came from 2019’s The Rise of Skywalker, when Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron is sharing intel with the Resistance and deadpans, “Somehow, Palpatine returned.” For years, people have made fun of, memed, and debated the line.
Oscar is currently prompting season two of Beef. During a recent appearance on the Happy, Sad, Confused podcast, Josh Horowitz asked him if he had any idea how big the line would end up being. In response, Oscar explained how it happened. To no one’s surprise, it was thrown in there during reshoots. He also didn’t know it would become a highly-memed moment.
Appearing on Josh Horowitz‘s Happy, Sad, Confused podcast in April 2026, Isaac revealed that the line was a late addition to the film, added during reshoots after principal photography had already wrapped. ‘Those were reshoots. We had to do reshoots. Those are like surgical strikes where you come in and they’re scrambling, trying to get everything done. That line was a new addition right at the end. There was a lot of movement and flux throughout the whole process.’
He also offered a detail that tells you something about just how rushed the moment was. By the time the reshoots were scheduled, Isaac had already cut his hair and moved on to other projects, meaning he had to wear a wig for the scene. His assessment of that wig, delivered with characteristic deadpan, was that it was ‘pretty good.’ (Your mileage may vary).
Did he have any sense that the line would follow him forever? ‘Had you asked me if, at that moment, I thought that was going to be a viral line, I wouldn’t have known. I mean, I committed to the exasperation, that’s for sure,’ he said.
Isaac is back in the spotlight thanks to Beef Season 2, currently streaming on Netflix, which has given the press a fresh occasion to revisit his Star Wars chapter. He reflected warmly on the making of The Force Awakens while being plainly honest about how chaotic the third film’s production became.
He also noted, with some curiosity, that Palpatine’s return was first announced not in the film itself but during a sponsored Fortnite event, a detail that has never quite stopped being strange.
There was one more thing Horowitz asked about, whether Poe Dameron might ever return to the galaxy far, far away. Isaac left the door open, responding with a tentative ‘Maybe?’ and adding, in Spanish, something roughly translating to ‘God willing,’ Though he did made clear there’s no known project in the works and that this is not him teasing a secret cameo.
”Somehow, Palpatine returned” became a big deal because of several factors. It was a combination of Oscar’s exacerbated delivery, the fact that production didn’t bother to tell movie-goers how the Resistance knew that Palpatine was back (it was revealed during a Fortnite event), and that it led to a stupid, disappointing plotline. It makes sense that it was just thrown in during reshoots, but it’s still crazy that J.J. Abrams and the rest of production thought they could get away with introducing such a big plot point through a single, almost throwaway line.
Obviously, Oscar couldn’t know that the line was going to blow up in the way that it did but it sounds like he’s made peace with it. From what I’ve seen online, no one blames him for it. I felt badly for all of the new actors involved in Episodes VII to IX because it was not a fun experience for most of them. They deserved so much better.
Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon, IMAGO/Zoonar.com/Lumeimages.com/Avalon, AMPAS/Avalon, James Warren/Bang Showbiz/Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer/Avalon